


As Good as It's Gonna Get

by onArete



Series: Taakitz Week 2018 [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: 2taakitz2week, Day 3, M/M, Soulmate AU, Taakitz Week, Taakitz Week 2018, fuck sazed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-18 09:09:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16115291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onArete/pseuds/onArete
Summary: As far as Taako’s concerned, though, the whole idea of soulmates is ridiculous.  Istus doesn’t know him.  Nobody really does.  Besides-- for every couple he sees, hands held tight and fingers woven with red thread, there’s a threadless couple.  And they all fight and hit and quarrel and break in up the same way.So he and Sazed are fine.  They’re not soulmates, but Taako’s never even seen his, so Sazed’s as good as it’s gonna get.





	As Good as It's Gonna Get

**Author's Note:**

> Day 3 of Taakitz Week! This is for the prompt "Soulmate AU". 
> 
> \----
> 
> See end notes for TW.

Taako doesn’t remember much about his childhood.  An aunt. A couple of cousins. A long, lonely time by himself in caravans.  He never went to school, doesn’t remember any teachers. But he knows one lesson clear as day.

 

Soulmates.

 

“Istus ties a red thread between you and your soulmate,” he remembers a voice saying, a voice he can’t put a name or a face to.  “When you see them, a know of red string appears around your pinky. When you hear their voice, it becomes a sailors knot. Touching them makes a bow, having your strings touch makes a bit of the string itself visible.  Only when you kiss is the whole string revealed.”

 

As far as Taako’s concerned, though, the whole idea of soulmates is ridiculous.  Istus doesn’t know him. Nobody really does. Besides-- for every couple he sees, hands held tight and fingers woven with red thread, there’s a threadless couple.  And they all fight and hit and quarrel and break in up the same way.

 

So he and Sazed are fine.  They’re not soulmates, but Taako’s never even seen his, so Sazed’s as good as it’s gonna get.

 

(He tells himself this setting up for the show and at night in bed and in the morning with purple handprints on his arms.)

 

They’re not soulmates, but they’re certainly something.

 

Taako complains about a draft in the wagon one night.  Sazed grabs his arms, pulls him closer than he’d’ve liked.  “This is as good as it’s gonna get,” he hisses, and Taako smiles and nods and agrees.

 

\------------------------------

 

“Just let me be a part of the show,” says Sazed.  “It would be great!”

 

Taako mumbles something about branding and advertisements and practically runs onstage, safe in the watching eyes of a few dozen people.  He and Sazed are lovers and partners and maybe even boyfriends, but because they’re not soulmates, Sazed can’t touch him out here.

 

They’re two cities away from Sazed’s question in a little mining town named Glamour Springs.  It’s dusty and rundown and not at all Taako’s style. But Sazed scheduled it, so, whatever. It’s fine.  He makes thirty garlic clove chicken and doesn’t taste it because _fuck_ if he’s tasting anything that might have dust in it.

 

Taako doesn’t taste the chicken and forty people die.

 

\------------------------------

 

Sazed grabs him in a way that’s going to bruise but for one of the first times it doesn’t lead to something sexual.  He tosses Taako into the wagon-- he’s too in shock, too busy having a panic attack to resist-- and they drive.

 

They drive and drive and two days later Sazed and all the money Taako’d saved are gone.

 

\------------------------------

 

All he can think is _that was as good as it was gonna get_ and he _ruined_ it.

 

\------------------------------

 

Time passes.  Taako ekes out a precarious existence.  He doesn’t try to reboot Sizzle it Up with Taako, or even cook to make a living.  His hands shake when he uses transmation magic and no _wonder_ Sazed left.

 

He takes mercenary jobs and jumps down a well and joins the Bureau of Balance.

 

He doesn’t think about soulmates.

 

\------------------------------

 

But it’s a tricky subject to avoid.  Magnus has a pretty red string tied in a bow, which means he met his soulmate and even touched them.  One end of it leads far into the sky (their strings touched, they kissed). Nobody needs to ask to know his soulmate is dead.

 

When Taako met Merle, the dwarf’s hands were bare.  By the time he takes another glance on the Rockport limited, he’s got an expertly tied sailors knot.

 

Other people have strings, too.  Carey and Killian seem to purposefully ignore the way their strings point to each other.  He trips Johann into Avi at dinner and watches with a smug smile as their red strings tie into bows.

 

\------------------------------

 

Taako very clearly is not interested in a soulmate.  He’s _glad_ he hasn’t found his match-- if he’s even got one-- in his adventures.

 

He’s not a good person.  He killed forty people and ruined his one chance at happiness.  No other poor sap deserves to be saddled with _him_.

 

\------------------------------

 

Madam Director Lucretia-- and fuck if that ain’t a name-- sends them into Lucas Miller’s laboratory.  Taako thinks nothing of it as he dons a full-body null suit.

 

Thinks nothing of it as they fight a crystal golem that speaks in a fucking _horrible_ Cockney accent.

 

“What’s your name, thug, I’m about to tentacle your dick!” Taako shouts, and _natch_ it’s a great line.  It seems to distract the golem, so, bonus points!

 

When the golem turns out to be a super hot Grim Reaper, Taako tells himself very pointedly to _not get interested_.  He had it good with Sazed and he fucked it up and he’s not doing that again.  Besides, it’s not like they’re soulmates.

 

\------------------------------

 

It’s not like they’re soulmates, Taako tells himself when he takes off his null suit and there’s a red thread tied in a simple knot around his pinky.

 

(It won’t come off when it’s cut or burned or frozen, won’t be untied.  How can Istus _not understand_ that he _shouldn’t have a soulmate_?  He’s a fucking disaster and that’s his problem and his alone.)

 

Taako piles on rings and covers up the thread.

 

(It’s probably a ghost in Legion, he thinks, because he doesn’t have a sailors knot and he’d heard Kravitz speak.  Probably for the best that his soulmate is long dead. They shouldn’t have to deal with him.)

 

\------------------------------

 

He pranks Leon and gives Angus magic lessons and hands out cooking tips to Lucretia who acts as though they’re made of spun gold.  Life is good. Taako’s got a bounty on his head but he lives on a moon so the militia can’t touch him. He’s got a knot of red thread on his finger but his soulmate’s a dead guy and they’ll never meet.  He’s got a red umbrella and a sweet dorm and an excellent paycheck.

 

This is as good as it’s gonna get.

 

\------------------------------

 

Lucretia sends them to Refuge.  In all honesty, it’s _not great_.  He doesn’t like dying over and over again, doesn’t like seeing Ren and being reminded of forty people dead.

 

They raise Istus’s temple.  She asks them to be her emissaries.  Magnus and Merle are all for it, but Taako lets his pendant hang in the air.

 

“How could you?” he asks, glaring at her.

 

“Um, Taako?” Magnus says nervously.  “That’s a, a goddess? Maybe be nice?”

 

Taako flips him off, and Istus laughs gently.  She pulls at a thread in her knitting and suddenly Magnus and Merle are moving as slowly as the exploding world outside the temple windows.

 

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

 

He can’t believe this.  She weaves _fate_ and doesn’t know what’s _wrong_?!

 

Taako yanks the rings off his pinky, drops them dramatically to her lap, shows her the red thread knotted there.  “This. _This_ is what’s wrong!  You made someone out there _expect_ me, expect me to get _good_ and _nice_ and their _soulmate_ and you _fucked up_ !  I’m not good!  Or nice! I killed forty people because I’m an _idiot_!”

 

Istus raises an eyebrow.  Her knitting never stops. “And why shouldn’t you have a soulmate anyway?”

 

He throws his hands up.  “You don’t get it! It’s not _about_ me!  It’s that... the person at the end of this string doesn’t deserve such a, a.  A shitty, uh, partner.”

 

She takes his hand, gently, and examines the thread.  “No, I think I’m right. The two of you can still be very happy together.”

 

Taako yanks his hand back.  “If I take your necklace thing, will you just... _try_ to give him a new soulmate?”

 

Istus smiles as he pulls it on.

 

“I think you’re a much better person that you’re willing to admit,” she says mildly, and Taako doesn’t have the time to respond because time catches back up to them and he dies a-fucking-gain.

 

\------------------------------

 

Taako can’t process the scene in front of him.  Glamour Springs. A bedazzled stagecoach. He stands on stage, six years in the past, mixing the garnish.

 

And Sazed, in the back.  Holding an empty bottle of arsenic.

 

He wants to scream and shout and yell at him, how _could_ he--

 

(Taako didn’t ruin what they had, it was petty _jealousy_ \--)

 

“The vision revealed to me was chill as hell,” he says to June and Magnus and Merle.  “Get this-- _not my fault_!”

 

( _Fuck_ Sazed.  They had it good and he _ruined_ it and now Taako’s _good out here_ , leaps and bounds beyond as good as it was gonna get.)

 

\------------------------------

 

When the Grim Reaper comes calling, he isn’t prepared.  His skirt’s singed and his hair’s a disaster and Istus didn’t even give him back his rings so his red thread is exposed to the world.

 

“Well, you and I need to have a talk,” he says.  Taako does his best to defend the citizens of Refuge, and he’s only halfway through the story of what happened when Kravitz gets called off to his actual job.

 

He’s more prepared for their next meeting, in a skirt and blouse and poppin’ makeup.  He’s gotten used to not covering the red knot since Refuge, but he puts a ring over it.  Takes it off. Puts it back on.

 

Taako takes it off and heads out to the Chug’n’Squeeze before he can second-guess the decision.  He’s _Taako_ , from _TV_.  He didn’t kill forty people.  He’s allowed to show that he’s got a soulmate.

 

\------------------------------

 

“Ugh-- can I drop the accent?” asks Kravitz, and Taako bursts into laughter.  He’s such an adorable dork, and it’s not until Taako's pulling off his other rings to work with the clay that he notices.  The red string is now tied in a perfect sailors knot.

 

(Makes sense, says a nagging little voice in his head.  You just barely heard his _real_ voice.)

 

Taako uses the hand without a string to help Kravitz mold his vase.  He’s watching the thread as it blooms into a bow.

 

So sue him for being distracted by his maybe-probably soulmate that he’s on a _date_ with and who also tried to kill him.  He’s too shocked to lie when Kravitz asks why he’s doing such a dangerous career.

 

“‘Cause I’m afraid no one else will have me.”

 

Kravitz touches his hand once, gently, after he says this.  Taako’s hyper-aware that it’s his right and Kravitz’s left and they’ve got their strings on those hands.

 

\------------------------------

 

A thread becomes visible, just a bit of it.  Thank Istus and Oghma and Pan and Meaty-hammer-whatever-Merle’s-old-god-was that Kravitz doesn’t comment on it.  He seems to be avoiding the subject as much as Taako is, and he’s grateful. (He’s overwhelmed.)

 

This _literal grim reaper_ who is a hot dork and also a goth and has a _work accent_ is his _soulmate_.

 

Then the umbrastaff tries to kill him and Taako spirals into another panic attack because he _just ruined his only chance with his_ **_soulmate_ ** and now they’re practically over and he should be glad they met at all because this is _as good as it’s gonna get._

 

\------------------------------

 

Wonderland takes.

 

Barry returns.

 

The Hunger arrives.

 

In two food trucks planes apart, two people make tacos, and take a bite.

 

\------------------------------

 

Taako opens a portal to the Astral Plane, and then there’s _Kravitz_ , Kravitz who doesn’t hate him and tried to get a message to him and--

 

“I don’t want it to be cold and weird,” he says.

 

Taako laughs at how perfectly _right_ this is and pulls him in for a kiss.  Red thread tangles between their fingers.

 

“This is as good as it’s gonna get,” he says when they separate, because for the first time, things _are_ good, and if they win this fight they’ll have eternity ahead of them.

 

“No,” says Kravitz.  “I mean, yes? Things are good, but, with you, Taako, every day’s going to even better than the last.”

  


**Author's Note:**

> TW for an abusive relationship (nothing graphic) between Taako and Sazed. Skip to the third "------" and you're good from there.
> 
> Also TW for Taako having panic attacks. Again, nothing graphic, they're just mentioned.


End file.
